REGIONAL – Last Friday, December 8, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced more than $700 million in economic and community development funding awarded through Round VI of the Regional Economic Development Council initiative. The Mid-Hudson Regional Council received $83.3 million this time around, a slight decline from 2015's $90.4 million.

The REDC process, in tandem with a comprehensive funding application each spring, has transformed government's approach to economic development in New York State, creating a statewide framework for supposedly bottom-up, regional economic growth while streamlining the state funding application process. Since 2011, the first year of the initiative, over $4.6 billion has been awarded to more than 5,200 projects that are projected to create and retain more than 210,000 jobs statewide.

The whole mechanism was set up to move beyond the former "earmark" means of doling out funding through state legislators, centralizing the process and minimizing the amounts pegged locally by elected representatives in their districts.

The biggest numbers for the Mid-Hudson group were $3 million to support the Legoland project in Orange County. This would be Lego's fourth theme park in the US and first in this part of the country. Second was $2.6 million for Star Kay White, a veteran New York State manufacturer, to build a new facility in the Warwick Valley Office and Technology Park. Third was $1 million for RUPCO'S Stockade Works project in Kingston, where the housing nonprofit plans to rework the old factory site into a film and TV studio run with Mary Stuart Masterson, for both production and post production, plus a "maker's space" for entrepreneurs.

Other key projects pegged for the greater region included funding for a distillery and inn on the site of one of the old Hudson River-fronting monasteries, quite a bit for the Thomas Cole House in Catskill, including a "skywalk" across the Hudson to nearby Olana, another Hudson River School of Painting historic site, and considerable funding for "medical villages" in Kingston and Middletown.

All told, $18.7 million was listed for projects in Ulster, Greene, Schoharie, Delaware and Sullivan counties. That's a drop from the previous round's $22 million, but about half the money will be spent in Ulster... where the lion's share will go to Kingston, about $5 million worth. Another notable winner was New Paltz, town and village, which collected $1.2 million.

Funds for things in the Route 209 corridor were fewer and farther between: $750,000 was pledged to phase 4 improvements to the Napanoch Sewer District, and $20,000 was granted for a feasibility study for the reuse of the Colony Farm property on Route 209, which currently belongs to the Department of Corrections. Might the farm become a working agri-tourism site at long last? And a connection on the trail system that continues to grow across Ulster? The feasibility study has been requested for years and indicates a possible sense of interest, finally, on the state's part.

As for The Nevele's plans to utilize state investment or loans as a fulcrum for private hedge fund investments to turn the mothballed resort into a new family sports destination, sources were saying that their avenues of funding won't be reporting for another month.

Ulster County Executive Mike Hein was full of thanks to the governor, in particular for an additional $500,000 funding for the Ashokan Rail Trail project, an 11.5 mile recreational trail from West Hurley up to Boiceville, announced earlier this week. That project is now set to begin construction late next year.

The funds were awarded through the Environmental Protection Fund: Parks, Preservation and Heritage Grant Program, and are on top of $2.6 million previously awarded in state grants for the project, along with $2.5 million from the New York City Department of Environmental Protection.

More rail trail funding was awarded to Sullivan County, too, for the OW Rail Trail project via two different grants totaling $152,000. The money will be used to advance work on completing the fifty miles of the old OW line that traverses the county.

The spending in the Mid-Hudson and Catskill region is bound up with ideas of promoting revitalization of the region's urban areas and addressing the high levels of rural and urban poverty here. The Mid-Hudson REDC has said that it is focused on job creation and building on the natural advantages of rural beauty in close proximity to New York City, seeking to boost the tourism industry, which many see as the region's best opportunity for economic growth.